Plain

image borrowed from bing

PLAIN

in memory, Bob Burlingame

If he had been
a creature on
an endangered list,

he might have been
a blackfooted ferret
nestled

beneath a gnarled
hackberry stump creekside
off the plains of Kansas,

or the plainest of plover
only found rarely
in a high canyon

deep in the Guadalupes
under the white peak
of El Capitán -

ancient reef
overlooking the salt flats
of West Texas.

He becomes a joshua lizard,
dry weeds, yellowood,
rooster, fish, beaver, finch,

blue milkwort, wild cherry,
sandhill crane, turkey vulture,
sunflower, shark, dandelion,

portuguese man-of-war,
sycamore, mountain laurel -
all that sing in solitude.


Gene Keller

Posted on Bobby Byrd's site White Panties and Dead Friends